Gemotions

The news arrived in a hurried phone call from his sister. “Did you hear about…?” she began, her voice filled with a similar disbelief, before the words 'your college' and 'closing down' spilled out of her mouth. He clutched his phone.

He felt a strange tingling in his hands, a buzzing sensation that spread up his arms. The pizza he'd been eating suddenly tasted like cardboard. He walked to the window, the familiar view of the city now distorted, the buildings seeming to tilt and waver.

“No, no, that can’t be right,” he said to the empty room, his voice a tight whisper. He couldn’t seem to breathe. Everything around him, once familiar, had become suddenly precarious and unstable.